Saturday, June 07, 2008

Two posts from EU Referendum blog. The truth about MEP's pay and expenses, and how the Conservatives will not honour their promise of a referendum if Labour have signed the Lisbon Treaty by the time they come to office. In the latter, Cameron's language is revealing:

He was, apparently, speaking to an audience in Harlow, Essex (part of his programme of touring marginal constituencies) when he was asked the dreaded "R" question. Then he admitted it would be "almost impossible" to have a referendum if it was already law in the UK and the rest of the EU. "We may have to say, well look, we're not happy with this situation, here are some of the powers we'd like to have back," he said, "But we can't give you that referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because it's already been put in place across the rest of Europe."

It's quite an admission - that an elected government would be unable to do as it wished, whatever majority it possessed, because it had been bound by a decision of an earlier government.

Or, to look at it another way, it's an admission that the UK government is no longer the government of the UK.

UPDATE: That's not quite right. The Conservatives acquiesce to this situation. It's still the case that they could do as they please. Belgium isn't going to send the tanks in and France isn't going to ban its own exports to us by banning our imports. It's simple acquiescence. But the process of annexation is proceeding so slowly, by such degrees, that nobody is willing to turn out into the streets, or block traffic, over this issue.

We need to reach that point.

But I also notice this. Nobody is trying to organise it. Nothing else will work.